HOGAN PERSPECTIVE:
JUDGMENT Leadership theories commonly focus on individual characteristics like charisma, influence, and work ethic, but the key drivers of leadership performance are the leader’s decisions. Indeed, since leaders are responsible for the welfare of groups and organizations, the decisions they make – good or bad – are consequential. Positive organizational outcomes are the consequence of good leadership decisions; negative organizational outcomes are the product of poor decisions. Thus, understanding how leaders make decisions, and in particular, whether they are capable of displaying good judgment, is critical to understanding organizational effectiveness. To date, most efforts aimed at explaining or predicting judgment have focused on critical thinking, IQ, or other cognitive abilities. However, this paints an incomplete picture of an individual’s thinking and decision-making style. Indeed, cognitive ability may play a major role when it comes to learning new things and solving logical problems, but most of the problems leaders encounter in organizations are ill-defined, and their critical decisions are often made under conditions of uncertainty. In fact, many of the key decisions leaders make are better explained in terms of personality than intelligence.
© 2014 Hogan Assessment Systems Inc.